1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of ocular imaging, and, more particularly, to devices for imaging the ocular fundus.
2. Description of Related Art
The term ocular fundus refers to the inside back surface of the eye containing the retina, blood vessels, nerve fibers, and other structures. The appearance of the fundus is affected by a wide variety of pathologies, both ocular and systemic, such as glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetes, and many others. For these reasons, most routine physical examinations and virtually all ophthalmic examinations include careful examination of the ocular fundus.
Routine examination of the ocular fundus (hereinafter referred to as fundus) is performed using an ophthalmoscope, which is a small, hand-held device that shines light through the patient's pupil to illuminate the fundus. The light reflected from the patient's fundus enters the examiner's eye, properly focused, so that the examiner can see the fundus structures.
If a hard copy of the fundus view is desired, a device called a fundus camera can be used. However, to use existing fundus cameras successfully is a very difficult undertaking. The operator must (1) position the fundus camera at the correct distance from the eye, (2) position it precisely in the vertical and horizontal directions in such a way that the light properly enters the pupil of the patient's eye, (3) refine the horizontal and vertical adjustments so that the light reflected from the front surface of the eye, the cornea, does not enter the camera, (4) position a visual target for the patient to look at so that the desired region of the fundus will be imaged, and (5) focus the fundus image. Al these operations must be performed on an eye that is often moving. Therefore, the use of existing fundus cameras requires a significant amount of training and skill; even the most skilled operators often collect a large number of images of a single eye in order to select one that is of good quality.
In existing fundus cameras, alignment and focusing are performed under visual control by the operator. This usually requires that the patient's eye be brightly illuminated. Such illumination would normally cause the pupils to constrict to a size too small to obtain good images. Therefore, most existing fundus cameras require that the patient's pupil be dilated by drugs.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,703 describes an invention made by one of the present inventors and discloses apparatus for analyzing the ocular fundus. The disclosure in this patent is incorporated herein by reference.